Their Darkest Hour
by bookgeek96
Summary: What ever happened with Ratchet when Team Prime was scattered after their base destroyed by Megatron in Darkest Hour? After everything he had been through, will the medic finally give up in this war? Will he have a friend to keep his hope alive? :Slight AU because of added OC but don't worry, she is not the main focus, only a side supportive character, no pairings, just partners:


**AN: Hey, this is bookgeek.**

**yeah my stories are all over the place, but this is one I really wanted to do, it takes place just after darkest hour from season 2 and occurs over the first four episodes of beast hunters. Though it does have Evee, I wanted it to be mostly focused on Ratchet's perspective, I didn't want my character to steal the spotlight so she is mostly serving as a supportive character. So this is slightly A/U ish**

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Never had any of them felt so helpless in the war.

It had all started with the siege of the Omega Lock on Cybertron; the Decepticons had acquired all four Omega Keys that had the ability to activate the lock and restore the dead world of the Cybertronians. But the Autobots knew that they could not allow their enemies to be the ones to reactivate their planet, if Megatron was its savior he would no doubt brand every Autobot as a war criminal and hunt every last one of them down to extinction.

Optimus Prime, with his newly repaired Star Saber, had led his team onto the dead planet to hold the Omega Lock, but that was when everything went horribly wrong.

The Decepticon war lord had always fought dirty, putting the Autobot's human friends into the mix, using them as hostages to repossess the recently captured Omega Keys from the Autobots was like a way to cheat at the finish line. The tables had been turned on them yet again.

The Autobot leader was torn.

His Optics glanced between the three terrified children being contained like stray Scraplets in the pods; the smug looks on their captors' face plates. He saw his team all stand in shock and fear for both their charges and planet, the smallest member of the team, a fourth human with Cybertronian metal and a battle mask hiding her identity, her body was rigid, her right metal arm was humming with Energon. The Prime's metal digits clenched the hilt of his sword, as he had to make the impossible decision: let their human allies perish at the hands of their enemies and keep the valuable Omega Keys, or hand over the last chance to save Cybertron in exchange.

There was no alternate choice; it was one or the other…

"If my choice dooms the future of our race then so be it, but I will never forsake our human allies…"

And with those words, he drove his sword into the ground between the Autobots and Decepticons and the Autobots relinquished their weapons. One by one they gave their keys to the ones they had fought so hard to keep them away from and took back their friends. The tension was like an acidic fog, seeping between the two sides.

And then Megatron crossed the line…

With one look from the war lord, Optimus' spark froze in its casing. More troopers emerged from a space bridge and surrounded team Prime as Megatron and his lackeys activated the long dormant Omega Lock, but revealed his true desires as another swirling green vortex materialized above the lock with a one-way path to the small organic planet of Earth.

"Why rule only one world…when I can rule two?" Megatron sneered.

"No!" Optimus heard Jack shout, his fists pounding against the glass of his container.

"Leave our planet alone!" Miko cried.

That was when all of chaos was released.

Optimus Prime seized the star saber and sliced down the row of Vehicons that surrounded them and thundered towards Megatron. The Decepticon let out an enraged scream and ran towards him with his Dark Star Saber in his stolen hand, one he had acquired from desecrating a sacred tomb of the Primes. With one powerful strike, Optimus cleaved his sword down on Megatron's shoulder and severed his sword arm clean off.

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Another tremor sent Ratchet darting to cover the sensitive tech once again as dust and small rocks rained down from the silo roof. By the All-Spark, he had no idea what was going on but he prayed that the crashing systems and quakes were due to the activation of the Omega lock.

How hard they had all fought to get to this point, finally able to go back to their home; the planet that he missed for eons and he wasn't about to let the opportunity get snatched away again, and he knew that Optimus and the team wouldn't either.

The medic was once counting down the days until he could get off of this planet; there were just so many things on it that revolted him, the dusty ground they drove on that got rocks and Primus knows what else caught up in his gears, the weather patterns that caused irritating precipitation, those insufferable Avialae creatures that flew over top and dropped disgusting excrement all over his hood and windshield…

But there might have been things he would possibly miss…the four humans that had joined Team Prime, the first being Evelyn Peters over six years ago, followed by The other three: Jackson Darby, Miko Nakadai and Rafael Esquivel. The old Autobot would never admit it out loud, especially when said four were within hearing range…but despite their fleshy composition, their habit of getting in the way or underfoot and Miko's tastes in the loud shriek metal that gave him a splitting processor ache…maybe they weren't such little urchins as he believed them to be.

There were those few moments where he really did admire how the youngest, Raf, could breach almost any firewall human or Cybertronian with the primitive computer he possessed, or the fierce determination that Evee possessed when she worked in the medical bay or fought in the field. The loyalty and maturity that Jack had when he brought the Autobot's back on their feet to get Optimus Prime back when he had lost his memories and joined the Decepticons. Even Miko's extreme optimism and quirkiness when her friends needed a good laugh; all were traits that would be hard for Ratchet to forget...

.::Ratchet…Please open a space bridge…::. Optimus Prime's voice had jarred the medic out of his thoughts. He noticed all of his computers were back online but something was extremely unsettling in the Prime's tone as he addressed him; there was an exhaustion that he had never heard before. Ratchet immediately reached for the lever after punching in the coordinates and opened the bridge.

The first shock to him was the sight of Jack, Miko and Raf in containment pods being carried in by their designated guardians; three out of the four humans that he had most definitely not sent up to Cybertron.

"The children?" He questioned in surprise, "What happened?"

He received no response, but there was a feeling of dread that made the silence seem more deafening than standing behind a jet engine powering up. He immediately counted the number of beings that came through the bridge but no one was missing in action. So why were they all so quiet like they had all just attended a funeral?

"Somebody say something!" Ratchet said in desperate attempt to get some sort of sign of life from any of them. Maybe their audio receptors were faulty from the inter-stellar travels? A temporary side effect from the new space bridge? But Bulkhead stopped after releasing Miko. He didn't meet the medic's optics and instead closed his own as he spoke, finally breaking the silence.

"Optimus…destroyed the Omega Lock…"

_'Destroyed the Omega Lock' _the words repeated in Ratchet's mind like a reoccurring nightmare…suddenly it felt like gravity hated him, pushing him down into the ground like he was being weighed down by the sky itself_. _But a voice spoke in the background.

"Ratchet?" it asked. Finally he shook his helm to realize that he was back in reality, he had been lost in a memory of recent events. It took a while for his optics to adjust to his surroundings but eventually he saw the open woodlands that he had been standing in, it was late in the evening and the moon was full. The small being standing beside his peds was looking up at him with concern, her emerald eyes seemed to mask the millions of tormented emotions that they wanted to betray, but she had settled for a simple anxious look, worried for him.

"Are you well?" she asked in a small voice.

"I'm fine." Ratchet huffed and looked away from the middle distance. The memory was still fresh; the argument was rolling through his processor like an instant replay…

_'You destroyed the only means of restoring our home?'_

_'All the countless sacrifices…FOR NOTHING?'_

"If you say so…" the girl spoke slowly but glanced around, "we should probably move out of the open…if you are up to it that is…we can stay here if you wish."

_'Right decision or wrong what's done is done…'_

_'The base is lost…I will remain behind to ensure the Decepticons do not follow.'_

"Just go, I will follow on my own terms." Ratchet replied in a colder tone than he probably intended. But the human girl, only looking perhaps thirteen at the most but was in reality more than half a century old, nodded solemnly. She had always behaved older, she always felt like she needed to…Ratchet didn't know if it was an act or not, but at the moment he didn't care. Without another word she slowly stepped away, leaving him with his thoughts and to attempt to clear her own.

Ratchet and the girl, Evee, had been bridged out together after the others, leaving Optimus in the base alone. None of them knew if he had perished, none of them knew what he was going to do. Not even the medic himself. As soon as they exited the space bridge portal to the unknown location, Ratchet had no idea what to think; he had always known to expect anything when Optimus and the Autobots left on missions, but never had he imagined his leader to do something so extreme…to sacrifice the fate of _their_ home…just to save an ungrateful race of organics that didn't even know who they were, who didn't even know how close they had come to extinction and would most likely never show any form of appreciation or gratitude. It made his Energon run cold.

He should have been furious, he should have started screaming and yelling and ripping up trees for all it was worth…

…But he couldn't. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't. An old friend, someone he had known longer than most others was dead? Injured? He shuddered at the thought, the not knowing.

He remained where he was that night, looking back at the moon as one sentence echoed through his mind.

_'I…never imagined it would end like this…'_

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**Good? Bad? please review ^^ let me know, hopefully I get the next few chappies up soon**


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